A planning process which involves multiple entities can be difficult to manage and coordinate, especially if there are one or more documents being passed between parties during the course of the process. This is the case with the construction and building industry. The planning which is required prior to the construction of a modern building is a labor intensive exercise, segments of which may be repeated several times during the process. When a prospective owner desires to build a building, using a design-builder delivery system, the owner's agents produce a request for proposal. The request for proposal (RFP) document which is distributed to potential design-builders includes the performance requirements for the building and the requirements for submitting a proposal.
A design-builder entity then distributes the RFP to a design team of architects and engineers and a builder team. The design team is typically responsible for designing the building in sufficient detail to begin actual construction of the building. These design details are embodied in construction drawings and specifications. The details for the building include specific features, materials, products, systems, schematic diagrams, and so forth. Using this design specification, the builder team may produce a financial document estimating the cost of the project and a construction schedule. At this point, if financial projections exceed the allocated budget, another iteration of the design may occur in an attempt to produce a design-builder proposal which is financially commensurate with the RFP. When the financial document and the design specification are satisfactory to the design-builder entity, the documents are combined into a design-builder entity proposal which is submitted to the prospective owner.
At this point the agents of the owner compare the design-builder proposal with the RFP and based upon the findings of the design teams, a decision is made as how to proceed. The decision at this point may be not to proceed, to issue another RFP, to negotiate specific changes in the proposal or to accept the design-builder proposal. Thus at several stages in the planning, many segments of the planning may be redone multiple times in an attempt to meet certain constraints.
In an attempt to reduce the amount of work required for this labor intensive process several systems have been developed which attempt to automate segments of the planning process. For example, Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs reduce the time required to create or change the schematic designs, while specification and estimator programs reduce the time necessary to create or change the textual portions of the proposal based upon the materials specified by the designers.
In view of the foregoing, it can be appreciated that a substantial need exists for a method and apparatus which solves the above-discussed problems, more specifically, to more efficiently allow multiple entities to work together while passing one or more documents between the entities.